Not Traditional, Original

Despite Apostle Paul’s word of “let there be no divisions among you”1 Cor 1:10[1] there are so many Christian denominations that no one knows the real number. One website says that there are over 40, 000, and you can access a list on that site of over 5000.[i] It’s an interesting read, but my question is why? The answer is quite simple really, when I began to look at all of the issues that Christians disagree on and form denominations over.

Christians divided on whether baptism was for infants by sprinkling or adults by immersion. They divided on whether the baptism of the Spirit was a second baptism, or it was what spiritually happens when they received Christ. They divide over whether or not abortion is acceptable, whether apostolic succession is a requirement for ordaining ministers, and whether celibacy is required for ministers. They’re divided over whether churches should be governed by an ecclesiastical hierarchy, presbyters, or the congregation. They’re divided over whether the Bible should be interpreted on grounds of which covenant pertains, or which dispensation we’re in. They are divided over whether the Bible is inerrant (completely free from errors in its original form), infallible (free from errors on doctrinal issues), or is purely of human origins and is full of errors. There are four different divisions on God’s guidance regarding divorce and remarriage. They’re divided over whether or not you can drink alcoholic beverages, gamble, or seek psychotherapy, even if by a Christian counselor. They’re divided on whether or not to be a part of the ecumenical movement.

There’s at least four different views on how events in the End Times are going to work. There are several different viewpoints in the creation versus evolution debate that Christians divide over. Some Christians will teach you that once you’re saved you’re always saved, while others will teach you that your salvation is eternally at risk. Some will teach you that if you don’t give you are robbing God while others will teach you that the Law is over, that giving must be free from compulsion or requirement and to give only from the heart. Some will teach you that healing died with the apostles, while others will teach you that healing happens every day. Some will teach you homosexuality is acceptable, while others will teach you that it is an abomination. Some will teach you that Christian believers were predestined; while others will emphasize that every person simply and purely makes a free will decision on whether to accept Christ as Lord and Savior. Some denominations will ordain priests, while another will teach that all believers are priests, and others ordain ministers as opposed to priests. Some teach that priests are necessary to act as mediators between God and men while others teach that believers have direct access to God already.

Some denominations practice prophecy, while others teach the prophecy is over. Some denominations teach prosperity, that it is God’s will that all people prosper, while others denounce this and say that we must accept whatever God brings our way. Some churches practice two sacraments, others practice seven sacraments, while others teach that baptism and/or communion are not sacraments, but ordinances or memorials, rituals that we are taught to practice because of what they bring to mind. (Some of these believers will call baptism and communion sacraments, but teach differently from Sacramentalists in saying that these rituals have no grace bestowing power.) Some denominations say that all believers are saints while others have stringent rules for dead believers to be proclaimed saints. Some groups teach that speaking in tongues is proof of the Holy Spirit while others teach that it is proof of devil possession. Some churches teach the bread and wine are converted into the actual body and blood of Christ while others teach that the body and blood of Christ are only represented in bread and wine. Some churches allow women to take pastoral and leadership roles while others teach that these positions are not for women. Some churches teach that you can speak things into being with your faith, i.e., Word of Faith, while others teach that God alone in his sovereignty decides everything no matter what you believe for. Some churches teach that God gave us reason to figure things out while others teach that God reveals things to people directly. Some churches teach that churches are part of the government while others teach their members to stay out of worldly affairs. In the churches there are at least three canons of Scripture, predominantly the Protestant and Roman Catholic, but also the Syrian.

The above doctrinal differences are for the most part between â€œorthodoxâ€ churches. And even in the issues listed there are more positions that the one talked about so far.And there are many people that follow Jesus who aren’t orthodox. That is another division among Christians and the first issue there is whether or not Jesus is God, and part of the Trinity.

The number of possible variations among Orthodox Christians is in the trillions, and if you include divisions over the Trinity, and other “unorthodox” issues, it is many times more.

What makes variations available? Variations occur when there are multiple options available. For example, let’s say that that there is a certain kind of sheep called the Pittsburgh sheep. (It’s just an example, it doesn’t really exist.) This sheep can have horns or not have horns. It also can have a light, cream colored coat or it can have a darker, brown coat. There are two horns options and two color options. The number of variations can be calculated by multiplying the number of choices for each option. In this case there are four variations possible, (2) two kinds of horns (X) times (2) two kinds of colored fur. The variations are:

cream fur with horns

cream fur without horns

brown fur with horns

brown fur without horns.

If the fur had three choices, let’s say black, then there would be (2)two kinds of horns (X) times (3) three kinds of colored fur to make (6) six possible variations.Besides the above variations now there would be two more.

black fur with horns

black fur without horns

This example illustrates that to calculate the total possible variations you simply multiply the number of options available for each issue to calculate the total number of variations.

The example above shows how to calculate variations with a small number of options. Next we will look at variations within Christianity. It must be said that calculating the number of variations possible in Christianity is by no means an exact science because there is no extensive research into all the issues that divide Christians. For each of the doctrines to which there are variations I have ascribed a number of positions that are found in looking at the doctrine in different churches. But there may be more positions available and there probably are. The point here is not to do an exhaustive search into the maximum number of Christian belief sets available, rather it just to show that it is that it is easy to see why there are so many denominations and that the number of possible denominations is so huge. It’s easy to see when you just start to look at what the product of the variations on the different doctrines is. The number below is the number of variations within the “orthodox” church, which supposedly allows for these variations in doctrine because they are not “essential”. The number at the bottom of the page is how many more variations become possible when you go outside the “orthodox” church, and consider those churches too.

In reality, the huge number of variations may not be really possible because some of the doctrinal combinations wouldn’t be possible within certain theological schools of thought. For example, no fundamentalist church that I know of that teaches biblical inerrancy also teaches acceptance of homosexuality. Nevertheless, as stated above, the number of possible variations is so huge that it is ridiculous.

Number of Possible Variations: all are Orthodox(Trinitarian)

4,638,564,679,680

Doctrine

Number of Options

Baptism: Infant baptism versus immersion

2

Spirit Baptism, available now or not

2

Abortion, acceptable or not

2

Apostasy,

2

Apostolic Succession, importance

2

Celibacy, required for priesthood or ministers

2

Church Government, forms

3

Covenantism and Dispensationalism

5

Divorce and remarriage

4

Drinking, acceptability

2

Ecumenicism, pursued

2

End Times (Eschatology)

4

Eternal Security available or not

2

Evolution acceptable

2

Giving Doctrine, is tithing required

2

Healing, exists in our time

2

Holiness, promoted as a crucial element

2

Holy Spirit, manifested in the church

2

Inerrancy, infallibility or fallibility of the scriptures

3

Homosexuality, acceptability

2

Ordained ministers lead services

2

Predestination believed

2

Prophecy practiced

2

Prosperity promoted

2

Psychology accepted as valid

2

Sacraments, ordinances or simple memorials

3

Sainthood, all believers or those canonized

2

Speaking in Tongues as proof of salvation

2

Transubstantiation in holy communion

2

Women’s Role, women can lead in church

2

Word of Faith promoted

2

Cessation doctrine (Apostoloc Age ceased, gifts ceased, etc.)

2

Sacerdotalism (priests are needed to mediate between God and Man)

2

Use of Reason versus revelation

2

Integration of the church and government (Church should stay out of politics or participate)

The Deity of Christ and the Trinity (Trinitarian, Unitarian, and Monophysite)

3

Possible variations available including Trinitarian options

13,915,694,039,040

So while it is certainly true that the Lord is at work despite the disputes and divisions among us it is a sad reality that there is a huge amount of disagreement among us and that disagreement could get much worse. We will discuss more about this in future blogs. The only response at this time I can offer is that despite this disagreement we can rejoice together that we know Christ and be thankful that he is in our lives.

Last week it snowed and blanketed the area in white. The road crews were able to clear the main roads, but it kept snowing and was very cold so most of the area kept building up a deepening layer of snow.

Then it rained and got warmer for a couple days. Most of the roads cleared but a lot of the snow remained. The snow, however, was no longer white; it was gray, almost the color of the road. There were mounds of this gray frozen slush all over the place. On the edge of the roads frequently these mounds of gray slush camouflaged the curbs. One dangerous place in particular was where gray snow covered the highway median so you didn’t know exactly where the median and curb were. That scenario happened to me.

The other night I was coming home after dark. It was cloudy and the lighting was bad. I came to an intersection where I had to turn left around a median. I had been there countless times before. I pulled up to the light, started my turn, and looked through the windshield. Lo and behold, I just couldn’t see clearly for a minute. There was a harsh glare on the pavement from the melted snow. The median was totally hidden in the gray frozen slush. For just a moment I lost my bearings. I couldn’t tell where the median was! Well, I was going slowly, there was only a single car behind me and none in the opposite lane of the road I was turning off of, so I carefully turned back onto the road that I had turned off of. I went up the road and negotiated the turn at another access point. I was able to finish my drive home without incident.

What stood out in my mind about all this was the phrase the Apostle Paul used “seeing through a glass dimly.”(1 Corinthians 13:12) In my scenario it was dark, I was looking through a glass, and I just couldn’t see clearly. I was looking “through a glass dimly”! While the analogy describes physical vision, Paul used the term to describe our spiritual vision. Paul, in his letters teaches us that we have a holy spirit that guides us, and to follow that spirit, but he also teaches us that we can’t see clearly, i.e., we see through a glass dimly.

That makes me think of all the various churches and denominations and how so many of them teach and are committed to the leading of the spirit. But they all see through a glass dimly. So one, committed to following the leading of the spirit, says we can baptize infants by sprinkling them. Another splits away from that church, saying the spirit is leading them that adult believers only are baptized, being immersed in water. Another says that the baptism of the spirit is the only baptism we need while others say that spirit baptism is a second baptism. Another says that speaking in tongues and other manifestations are the proof of receiving the spirit. And another, also filled with zeal and committed to following the spirit, says that anyone who speaks in tongues is a devil because tongues has ceased.

I have personally gone to churches and fellowshipped with believers who believe all these things. In every case, there is sincerity. More than that, in every case, there is believing and faith. God answers prayers in all these places.

We all see through a glass darkly. The churches above see the spirit, but they obviously can’t always make out all the details because the spirit is not saying one thing to one and an opposing thing to another. Yet God is working with all of us to the degree that we believe him for results.

When we can’t see clearly, the mistake is to plunge blindly ahead. The smart thing is to back out of the situation and come back to when we can see more clearly.

Original Christianity

This web is a look at primitive, original Christianity, how it developed over time and how it compares to current practices.

Why? Click to Read More...

"Jesus Christ is Lord" is the common belief of billions of Christians. But there are tens of thousands of denominations. While ancient denominations like the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox claim to be the original and consequently "true" church, innumerable churches and denominations have started citing error in these ancient bastions and/or the leading of the spirit to reform the church and restore the church.

There are numerous disputed issues. Cessation doctrine (prophecy and the gifts of the spirit ended with the apostles), infant baptism, the inerrancy of Scripture, the form of Church government, the role of women in the church, and currently, the acceptance of homosexuality are just some of the many disputed doctrines that cause the Christian body to be so divided.

The Reformation movement performed an invaluable service. But instead of simply reforming the church or simply working to create one more correct alternative church the Reformation movement worked to increase the number of disputes over scripture and consequently the number of splits has increased exponentially.

The problem with looking at all the denominations is that it can become confusing to just compare this church or denomination to that one. The complexity of looking at all the theological implications can become overwhelming. For many busy people that means just making the best, less than fully educated decision they can, and staying with the church of their heritage or finding a church where they feel they can grow.
Just finding the information can be an overwhelming task. Putting it into some understandable framework is an even more complicated task.

This web site, rather than trying to just compare all the current positions on the differences goes back to the beginning (primitive, original Christianity) and evaluates Christianity starting at that point. This includes looking at the gospel accounts, but also includes looking at early church documents as well as other ancient documents, both secular and religious. (There is also a section on Philosophy because its profound impact on Christian theological development.) The articles have numerous references to works both in print and online.

Next the web site looks at the developments in Christianity from original Christianity forward to see how the church developed over time comparing each development with what we know about original Christianity. The goals are:

To trace the development of the church from start to now to see how the church at large wound up with all these competing churches/denominations today, and

To equip people with the knowledge of original Christianity to enable people to make an informed decision on what is the true faith and practice of the church Jesus Christ started.